1. go to the source section of your favorite Debian mirror 2. for each package you want to recompile, download the *.orig.tar.gz, *.diff.gz and *.dsc NOTE: Not all source packages have the same name as the binary package they create. E.g. the c-client-dev package comes from imap. Also the source package may be in a different section than the binar. E.g. c-client-dev is in devel, imap is in mail. Use the mirrors Packages.gz file to sort out what comes from where.
3. if you haven't already, download and install the dpkg-dev package from devel to get the basic package building tools. 4. run: dpkg-source -x whatever.dsc This should give you a whatever directory. cd into it. 5. run (as root or using fakeroot, sudo etc.): debian/rules binary cd up one level and if all has gone well you will see a .deb. One problem with the current Debian system is that there are no source dependencies so you may need to experiment a bit to determine what exactly you need installed for the build process to work. (A good packager will have documented this in debian/README.debian. Also--and this is important!--DO NOT give out .debs created in this manner to other people without changing the maintainer address in debian/changelog to your address, bumping up the version number in debian/changelog. (The usual practice is to use decimal numbers for example if the debian package was 1.0-1, yours would be 1.0-1.1) and signing the package with your PGP key. Also you might want to notify the Debian maintainer so he knows there are "pirate" .debs floating about out there. -- Jaldhar H. Vyas <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On Mon, 12 Apr 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > You could still get the unstable source packages and build the deb > from them. Now I really wish I could figure out the damn details as > to how to do this. Any one care to explain? I'm lost in a maze of > manpages all alike. > > [dpkg-source -x? dpkg-buildpackage -b? dpkg-deb?? Red Hat makes this > so easy it's not funny.] > > -N. > -- > "These download files are in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. After unzipping, > these files can be viewed in any text editor, including all versions of > Microsoft Word, WordPad, and Microsoft Word Viewer." [Microsoft website] > < http://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~navindra/editors/ > > > ------------------------------ >